There’s an old adage about pioneers: They’re the ones who take the
arrows in their backs. In the best cases, however, the pioneers who
successfully dodge the arrows—or even survive a few hits—are the ones
who also gain the advantages of being out in front. And when it comes
to industrial wireless networking technology, some of today’s
pioneering end-users believe that their efforts will pay off for their
companies in just such a way.

Leading The Charge

Take the case of David Runkle, production manager at Lost Pines Power Park, an electric power generating complex about 40 miles southeast of Austin, Texas. When Runkle led the charge last year to install a wireless infrastructure at the facility for a new wireless public address system to boost staff efficiency, he faced heavy opposition from his corporate information technology (IT) department. One IT staffer, concerned about security, even hired a third-party hacker to try to break into the system as it was being launched.

Runkle also took flak from some plant personnel when he and a wireless vendor formed a “core team” of employees to test a set of wireless Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) paging devices. Their mistake was distributing the devices too soon, before all of the system bugs were worked out. Some workers had already been skeptical of the technology. And when the wireless system would suddenly stop working due to intermittent problems, those suspicions were reinforced.

The cause of the problem was minor, and has since been corrected. But by moving too soon with the tests, the Lost Pines wireless team lost the chance for some “early buy-in” for the project from key plant personnel. In retrospect, says Runkle, “we probably should have waited until we knew what all the issues were.”

Today, however, Runkle is “still standing” after surviving the early problems. The wireless system is up and running, and working well. And the infrastructure put in place for the public address system—installed at cost of about 25 percent less than that of a comparable hard-wired system—includes a “wireless umbrella” over the Lost Pines complex that can cost-effectively accommodate other industrial wireless applications.

 

What that means is that the Lost Pines Power Park is now well-positioned to use its new wireless infrastructure to cash in on a broad range of other cost-saving industrial wireless applications, Runkle says. “The project was justified on the communications piece alone, and now we’ve got a number of future applications that are already on the drawing board.” These range from remote wireless monitoring of Internet protocol (IP) video cameras, to wireless tank level sensing, leak detection and wireless systems for stress wave analysis-based equipment monitoring.

PPG Industries' Lake Charles, La., plant is using Emerson's Smart Wireless self-organizing mesh network technology at its A Caustic Unit. Shown at left is a Rosemount wireless temperature transmitter, which is being used as a repeater for wireless temperature and level sensing applications. The mesh technology has worked well in tests, and PPG plans to expand use of the technology, says PPG Senior Design Engineer Tim Gerami (right).

IT buy-in

Another pioneer in the industrial wireless space is Tim Gerami, senior design engineer at the Lake Charles, La., plant of PPG Industries Inc. The plant, which comprises more than 20 operating units on about 765 acres, manufactures chlorine, caustic soda and chlorine hydrocarbons.

Unlike Lost Pines’ Runkle, Gerami says he hasn’t suffered any slings and arrows from his company’s corporate IT staff. One key is that Gerami and his fellow Lake Charles engineers got the corporate IT department involved early; they invited IT people from PPG’s Pittsburgh corporate headquarters to join the initial, multi-discipline team formed in 2005 to investigate use of wireless technology at the Louisiana plant. As a result, says Gerami, “it’s a very free and open exchange [between IT and process controls departments] and we all get along very well.” IT involvement at each step of the way also ensures that the wireless team doesn’t run afoul of any corporate IT policies, he adds.

That’s not to say that the Lake Charles wireless team didn’t encounter its share of early problems and setbacks. Some setbacks had nothing to do with wireless technology. Shortly after the PPG team received approval for its first wireless pilot project in late summer 2005, Hurricane Rita roared through, knocking out power and leaving standing water in the Lake Charles plant, which was shut down for 2½ weeks. Then, beginning in late May 2006, the plant suffered a 110-day strike, which had an equally debilitating ...